1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to methods and apparatus for treating patients and, more particularly, to a bed useful for treating patients by facilitating the body's own healing processes to stimulate cellular regeneration and thereby speed up healing of ailments suffered by the patients.
2. Description of the Related Art
When injured, or ill, the human body tends to work to repair itself. In many cases, “bed rest” is all that is required to cure minor aches, pains and illnesses, from a twisted ankle to the flu. Even more serious illnesses may respond to sustained periods of rest and recuperation. The body's own recuperative powers are not always enough for more serious injuries, however, or fast enough for some purposes. For example, football players (professional and amateur) take a tremendous pounding one day (game day) each week, and lesser poundings on practice days. There would be a tremendous benefit in performance if the healing for normal wear, for football players, could be accelerated.
It would also benefit non-athletes as well, if they could accelerate their body's own healing powers and thereby shorten any recovery period for recuperation from illnesses, trauma or any other infirmity. It would be especially useful to find ways to improve the body's own healing functions without use of invasive techniques, such as surgery, drugs, herbs or other remedies.
The difficulty lies in the fact that the body's own restorative processes are not yet completely understood, which has led to the exploration of so-called non-traditional cures, such as holistic medicine, herbal treatments, acupuncture, etc. No such treatment, however, has yet been demonstrated to stimulate true cellular level regeneration, and speed recovery to any great extent.
The inventors have discovered that low-level (in the range of no more than about 2 milli-Teslas: <2 mT and preferably as low as 10 micro-Teslas: <10 μT, or lower) magnetic fields work to stimulate cellular regeneration, and that this regeneration is enhanced when the body is kept at a regulated and constant temperature.
Preliminary research indicates that such treatment is found to provide beneficial effects in speeding recuperation for bruises, strains, and the like, encountered by athletes, and may also assist in recuperation from other illnesses, for example, from bedsores, to nerve damage, to almost any illness afflicting the human body.
There have been prior attempts to utilize alternating electromagnetic fields to promote healing in the human body.
A device for treating hypothermia with a magnetic field was disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,685,462. This device includes two spiral induction coils coupled with an RF generator through an automatic frequency tuning system comprising capacitors and induction coils. In this device, the coils are placed in a non-conducting cylinder which is an element of its casing. One of the coils is fed from the RF generator by a signal of a frequency tuned to the resonance frequency of the device, another by mutual induction. The device is used at a frequency of 2 MHz to 20 MHz, and is intended only to warm a patient who has been subjected to extreme cold, such as a diver submerged in near freezing water. It does not disclose use of magnetic fields to increase cellular regeneration.
Another device, disclosed in European Patent No. 0217011, for medium and high frequency electromagnetic field treatment, includes a pulse generator, a modulator, an amplifier, a band filter and a current regulation circuit. In this device, generated pulses are modulated by their duration or timing, and are amplified by means of power selectors. The amplified signal is applied to the patient through a filter by means of induction coils or electrodes. A signal from the patient is supplied to the device where a regulation system sets the value of rated current which excites the coils and electrodes.
A device for effecting the local, alternating electric and magnetic field of low frequency is disclosed in Polish patent document No. 171930. This device is provided with sensors of the three components of the terrestrial and local magnetic fields, connected with low-pass filters and a microcontroller at the output of which there is connected a pulse generator with three coils coupled thereto, incorporating an input multiplexer with inputs that are sensors and an output multiplexer. Those sensors are connected in parallel between the input multiplexer and the output multiplexer through low-pass filters. This device is used to determine the parameters of all components of the terrestrial and local magnetic fields and of the parameters of the electric field of the biological organism. It detects and signals the occurrence of cyclotronic resonance for specific ions which affect the biological processes of the organism, but is not itself intended for use in treating patients.
European patent document No. 0995463, describes a method and a device for the generation of an electromagnetic field which affects biological processes in living tissue, especially in the human body, by means of a pulsating magnetic field. An electric signal consisting of many discrete pulses having a frequency of from 1 Hz to 1000 Hz is generated and supplied to a device which then generates an electromagnetic field. Preferably, single pulses are grouped in pulse groups and the duration of each pulse group ranges from 0.25 second to 1.2 second. This device does not disclose the use of long-term exposure to a low-frequency magnetic signal for treating a patient.
The disadvantage of all those known devices is that they apply relatively high magnitude magnetic fields in the intensity range of from 1 mT to 10 mT, or they generate a magnetic field in one direction only. Another disadvantage of known devices is that they affect only a specific selected part of the human body through large values of magnetic induction causing excessively rapid stimulation of metabolic processes, while at the same time affecting healthy organs with unnecessarily strong, and therefore potentially harmful, magnetic fields.
Exposure of the human body to strong magnetic fields for extended periods of time is known to cause cellular damage, and so high-intensity magnetic field generating devices are not suitable for use over long periods, such as convalescence from serious long-term illnesses or injuries.